COLLE
107
COLLEGE
would increase rather than lessen social ills is obvi-
ously contraiy to the interests of morality and relig-
ion. P'urthermore, any collect! vist regime which should
seize private land or capital without compensation
is condemned by the Catholic doctrine concerning
the lawfulness of private ownership and the unlaw-
fulness of theft. Setting aside these questions of
feasibility and compensation are we obliged to say,
or permitted to say, that collectivism as described in
this article has been formally condemned by the
Cathohc Church? In the Encyclical "Rerum Nova-
rum" (On the Condition of Labour), Pope Leo XIII
clearly denounced those extreme forms of sociali.sm
and communism which aim at the abolition of all or
practically all private property. Perhaps the near-
est approach to an official pronouncement on the sub-
ject of essential and purely economic collectivism is
to be found rn the same document, where the Holy
Kather declares that man's welfare demands private
ownership of "stable possessions" and of "lucrative
property". (See Socialism.)
Ely, Socialism and Social Reform {New York, 1894); Van- DERVELDE, ColUctivism and Industrial Revolution, tr. (Chicago, 1904); Kadtsky, The Social Revolution, tr. (Chicago, 190S); Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum; Devas in The Dublin Review (London, Oct., 1906).
John A. Rtan.
Colle di Val d'Elsa (Collis Hetruscus), Diocese OF (CoLLENSis), suffragan to Florence. Colle is sit- uated in the province of Sienp., Tuscany, on the top of a lofty hill which overlooks the River Elsa. It is said to have been built by the inhabitants of Gracchi- ano, who had suffered greatly in the frequent wars be- tween Florence and Siena. The Gospel is supposed to have been preached there by St. Martial, a reputed disciple of St. Peter. Colle had at first a collegiate church, exempt from the ordinarj' jurisdiction of the neighbouring bishop, and widely known through the merits of its archpriest, St. Albert, who flourished about 1202. In 1598, Clement VIII, at the request of Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, erected the Di- ocese of Colle, the first bishop being Usimbardo Usim- bardi. The diocese has 72 parishes, 117 churches and chapels, 115 secular and 20 regular priests, 3 religious houses of men and 3 of women.
Cappeluetti, Le chiese d'ltalia (Venice, 1844), 275-77; Ann. eccl. (Rome, 1907), 408-10.
U. Benigni.
College. — The word college (Fr. college, It. collegia, Sp. colegio), from the Latin collegium, originally signi- fied a community, a corporation, an organized society, a body of colleagues, or a society of persons engaged in some common pursuit. From ancient times there ex- isted in Rome corporations called collegia, with vari- ous ends and objects. Thus the guilds of the artisans were known as collegia or sodalicia; in other collegia persons associated together for .some special religious worship, or for the purpo.se of mutual a.ssistance. This original meaning of the word college is preserved m some modern corporations, as the College of Physi- cians, or the College of Surgeons (London, Edinburgh). There were in Rome other, more official bodies which bore the title collegium, as the Collegium tribunorum, Collegium augurum, Collegium pontifwum, etc. In a similar sense the word is now used in such terms as the College of Cardinals (or the Sacred College), the Col- lege of Electors, the College of Justice (in Scotland), the (Jollege of Heralds (in England).
From the fourteenth century on the word college meant in particular "a community or corporation of secular clergy living together on a foundation for relig- ious service". The church supported on this endow- ment was called a collegiate church, liecause the eccle- siastical services and solemnities were performed by a college, i. e. a body or staff of clergymen, consisting of a provost, or dean, canons, etc.; later, the term "col- legiate " or " college church ' ' was usually restricted to a
church connected with a large educational institution.
Some of these institutions, besides carrying out the
Divine service in their church, were required to take
charge of an almshouse, or a hospital, or some educa-
tional establishment. It is here that we find the
word college introduced in connexion with education,
a meaning which was to become the most prominent
during succeeding centuries. It seems that in the
English rmiversities the term was first applied to the
fmuidatinns of the so-called second period, typified by
New College, Oxford, 1379; from these the name
gradually sjiread to the earlier foundations (Merton,
Balliol) which originally were designated by the term
aula or iloinun; then it was taken by the foundations
of the third period, the colleges of the Renaissance.
As used in educational history, college may be de-
fined, in general, as " a society of scholars formed for
the purposes of study or instruction"; and in particu-
lar as " a self-governing corporation, either independ-
ent of a imiversity, or in connexion with a university,
as the College of the Sorbonne in the ancient Univers-
ity of Paris, and the colleges of Oxford and Cam-
bridge ". In some instances, where in a university only
a single college was founded or survived, the terms
"college" and "university" are co-extensive and in-
terchangeable. This is the case in Scotland and, to a
great extent, in the United States. Although in the
United States many small institutions claim the am-
bitious title of university, it is more appropriate to ap-
ply this term to those institutions which have several
distinct faculties for professional study and thus re-
semble the imiversities of Europe. They differ, how-
ever, from the continental universities in one impor-
tant point, namely, in the undergraduate department
which is connected with the university proper. In
some places, as in Harvard, the term " college" is now
in a special sense applied to the undergraduate school.
This is the most common and most proper acceptation
of the term: an institution of higher learning of a
general, not professional, character, where after a reg-
ular course of study the degree of Bachelor of Arts, or,
in recent years, some equivalent degree, e. g. Bachelor
of Philosophy, or Bachelor of Science, is given. (See
Arts, Bachelor of, and Degrees, Academic.) It
is this meaning of college which will be treated in this
article ; all professional schools called colleges are ex-
cluded, such as teachers' colleges (training schools for
teachers), law and medical colleges, colleges of dentis-
try, pharmacy, mechanical engineering, agriculture,
business, mines, etc. Nor wilt colleges be included
which are divinity schools or theological .seminaries,
as the numerous colleges in Rome, e. g. the Collegium
Germanicum, Collegiimi Latino-Americanum, Colle-
gium Grajcum, or the English, Irish, Scotch, North-
American Colleges, and many other similar institu-
tions.
As the origin and evolution of the college, or of its equivalent, have not been the same in different coun- tries, it will be necessary, in order to avoid confusion, to treat separately of the colleges jieculiar to England. These deserve special attention for the further rea.son that the American college is an outgrowth of the Eng- lish college. Even at the present day the distinguish- ing characteristic of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge is the existence of the colleges. Nothing like it is to be found in any other country, and the re- lation between these colleges and the university is very puzzling to foreigners. The colleges are distinct corporations, which manage their own property and elect their own officers; the university has no legal power over the colleges, although it has jurisdiction over the individual members of the colleges, be- cause they are members al.so of the university. Mr. Bryco has used the relation between the university and the colleges as an illustration of the relations be- tween the Federal Government and the separate States of the American Union. But one great differ-
